Hamas: The al-Hayya Era

Over the course of three decades, Hamas evolved from the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood into an armed resistance movement at the end of 1987, before becoming the governing authority in the Gaza Strip following its takeover from the Palestinian Authority in 2007. From that point onward, Hamas ceased to be merely another Palestinian faction.

It is true that the movement had come to power through democratic and peaceful elections, with Ismail Haniyeh serving as Prime Minister of the Palestinian National Authority. Yet the bloody takeover, which claimed the lives of more than 120 members of the security forces and Fatah, as well as 39 civilians during five days of fierce attacks on Palestinian Authority institutions and the arrest of dozens of their personnel, according to reports by the International Committee of the Red Cross, fundamentally altered the political landscape.

Several leaders, including Mohammed Dahlan, fled by sea to Egypt. Around 50,000 government employees stopped reporting to work, while the Palestinian National Authority’s jurisdiction became effectively confined to the West Bank.

Following its overthrow of the Palestinian Authority’s legitimacy, Hamas was no longer simply a political faction or a democratic partner in government. It chose instead to separate the Gaza Strip from the West Bank and exercise exclusive control there, while making the downfall of the Ramallah leadership and the rejection of the Oslo Accords central pillars of its political agenda.

Hamas under Ismail Haniyeh

During the first decade of Ismail Haniyeh’s leadership, up to 2017, the movement underwent profound transformations in its relationship with Palestinian society, its political leadership and the various factions of the national movement. Its ties with the Arab world, the broader Muslim world and the international community also evolved significantly.

At the same time, its military wing, the Izz al-Din al-Qassam Brigades, experienced a qualitative leap in both military capabilities and weaponry, reaching its peak under the command of Yahya Sinwar.

These developments reshaped Hamas’ internal balance of power. With its center of gravity firmly established in the Gaza Strip and its popular influence expanding across the West Bank, the movement also benefited from a broad wave of support throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds, fostered by the international leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood, which, according to the author, took advantage of its favorable relationship with the US administration during Barack Obama’s presidency.

These internal realignments ultimately led to the sidelining of Khaled Meshaal, who had headed the Political Bureau for thirteen years. After moving its permanent headquarters from Amman to Istanbul and later to Doha, Ismail Haniyeh combined the leadership of the Gaza government with the presidency of Hamas’ Political Bureau.

Yet despite his management of both the movement’s internal and external balances, Ismail Haniyeh likely never imagined that the day would come when he would be forced to leave the Gaza Strip and live in exile, as Yahya Sinwar, the new commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, consolidated his authority. Sinwar eventually came to dominate not only Hamas’ military apparatus but also the movement’s political and governmental institutions.

Thus, the chairman of Hamas’ Political Bureau joined his predecessor, Khaled Meshaal, in exile, while formally retaining both his title and his position as head of the Hamas government.

The circumstances surrounding the departure of Haniyeh and many other senior leaders and founding cadres remain unclear, however, and are unlikely to be fully understood until the movement itself chooses to disclose its own account.

Nor were Hamas’ internal rivalries limited to the geographical divide between Gaza, the West Bank and the diaspora. They also reflected competing political and ideological currents: those loyal to the international leadership of the Muslim Brotherhood; political leaders whose regional relationships revolved around Türkiye, Qatar and Iran; and military commanders of a more pragmatic disposition, some more radical than others. While one camp sought to maximize the benefits of its alliance with Iran, another preferred to cultivate a broader network of regional relationships in order to widen its room for maneuver and consolidate its influence, without ruling out contacts with either the United States or Israel whenever circumstances required.

It was within this environment that Khalil al-Hayya emerged as Hamas’ leading figure in the Gaza Strip and as one of Yahya Sinwar’s closest associates. According to numerous individuals familiar with Sinwar’s military career, he was known for placing his trust in only a very small circle of people.

Those same sources argue that Khalil al-Hayya’s central role in negotiations stemmed precisely from the confidence Sinwar placed in him. When Sinwar assumed the leadership of Hamas’ Political Bureau, one week after Ismail Haniyeh’s death at the end of July 2024, he appointed al-Hayya as his deputy.

Sinwar’s assassination only two months after taking office as chairman of the Political Bureau immediately reopened the succession battle. Backed by Hamas’ leadership inside Gaza, Khalil al-Hayya ultimately defeated Khaled Meshaal and became the movement’s fifth Political Bureau chief, placing its principal levers of power under his control.

His rise to the top of the organization, however, cannot be explained by succession alone. Political and media sources, including several Egyptian analysts speaking on regional television networks, have claimed that negotiations held in Doha following Israel’s widely reported strike in Qatar targeting Hamas leaders were attended by senior security representatives from Israel, the United States and Türkiye.

According to those accounts, the talks resulted in Israeli commitments to halt the targeted killings of Hamas leaders and to end efforts to pursue them. Supporters of this interpretation argue that subsequent developments appear to lend credibility to that assessment.

Viewed through this lens, Khalil al-Hayya’s Hamas would no longer resemble either the Hamas of Sheikh Ahmed Yassin or that of Yahya Sinwar. Instead, its new leadership would be focused on implementing political and security understandings under primarily Qatari and Turkish sponsorship.

According to this analysis, the movement’s future role would therefore differ fundamentally from its previous one. Preserving its hold on power, whatever the political, human or material cost, would become its overriding objective. The survival of its authority would take precedence over the welfare of the population.

Al-Hayya’s Program

At the beginning of this week, the movement’s new leader delivered his first public address, outlining what he described as his principal objectives:

First, to bring Israeli military operations to an end and secure Israel’s full withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.

Second, to restore the basic conditions for life, prevent the forced displacement of the population, launch reconstruction efforts, and conclude a prisoner exchange agreement involving Palestinian detainees.

Third, to initiate a national dialogue aimed at rebuilding the Palestine Liberation Organization on democratic foundations.

Fourth, to strengthen Hamas’ relations with its Arab and Muslim environment.

Fifth, to coordinate international efforts to bring Israel’s military campaign to an end.

Sixth, to call upon the United Nations to provide protection for the Palestinian people and hold Israeli wartime leaders accountable before international courts.

Through an agenda whose implementation would require the backing of the world’s major powers and a broad international coalition, Khalil al-Hayya speaks with confidence and from what he portrays as a position of strength. Yet he does so from the comfort of a hotel room.

Meanwhile, on the ground, the military confrontation between Hamas and Israel has become inseparable from the areas sheltering displaced civilians, where vast numbers of people are crowded into makeshift encampments. The population is thus made to bear the consequences twice over: first through Hamas’ own security apparatus, tasked with controlling nearly two million displaced Palestinians within their own homeland; and second through Israel’s pursuit of Hamas operatives, with the resulting airstrikes, destruction, territorial expansion, and the restrictions that, according to the author, are then invoked to justify limiting the delivery of water, food and medicine.

Between this harsh reality and the movement’s declared political program, misery, despair and frustration continue to accumulate. Social media platforms across the Gaza Strip echo with cries of distress that Hamas’ leadership appears unwilling to hear, focusing instead on the future of its rule and the preservation of its own interests.

Three Options

Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has repeatedly argued that Palestinians face only three possible choices: emigration, death, or submission. According to the author, this vision is shared by a government committed to expanding Israeli settlements throughout the Palestinian territories.

The repeated incursions into the Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, together with the wave of violence carried out by settlers under the protection of the Israeli army, should therefore not be understood as a response to any existential threat. Rather, they form part of the implementation of what several ministers in the governing coalition have described as a “Decisive Plan,” aimed at extending Israeli settlement activity and annexing every part of the Palestinian territories that can be brought under the control of the settlers and the Israeli military.

With parliamentary elections scheduled for October of this year approaching, several members of the government have also made no secret of their desire to bring about the collapse of the Palestinian National Authority in Ramallah and eliminate what they regard as the last Palestinian institutional framework still committed to a political settlement based on the two-state solution. The leading figures of Israel’s most hardline religious nationalist camp openly argue that such a solution constitutes, in their view, the true existential threat facing the State of Israel.

The current wave of violence sweeping across the West Bank and targeting the Palestinian people, the indigenous inhabitants of the land, risks extinguishing the last remaining prospects for a peace founded on international law. So long as the international community confines itself to speaking about peace without creating the conditions necessary to achieve it in Palestine, the result, according to the author, can only be the perpetuation of an open-ended conflict.